Articles

Tammy Adams is a certified process facilitator specializing in Team Facilitation and Business Process Analysis. She guides teams in transforming their process knowledge and business requirements into viable project and system deliverables that incorporate quality principles consistent with quality methodologies such as TQM, Six Sigma, and Lean. She is co-author of, "Facilitating the Project Lifecycle: Skills and Tools to Accelerate Progress for Project Managers, Facilitators, and Six Sigma Project Teams."

I’ve been speaking at BPM conferences for – well, too long, probably – but long enough to see the evolution of BPM’s essential value proposition, as expounded by consultants, industry analysts, and BPMS vendors. Consistent with Darwinian theory, this evolution has not followed a simple linear thread but has branched into multiple lines, some destined to die out and others – hopefully – to flourish. Today I would say there are three distinct branches, three different statements of what BPM is and is trying to do. Each has its own natural constituency and ardent advocates.

This is the first article in a six-part series dedicated to exploring how SOA and service-orientation relate to and affect business analysis processes and approaches.

Bischoff is an international expert on optimizing and automating business processes across silos and the extended enterprise. She also is recognized for her work in Web services, brand strategies, strategic planning, integration, and IT/organization alignment.

According to Bischoff, most organizations are in the "tactical" mode when it comes to BPM. In other words, they are still in the discovery phase when it comes to Business Process Management. Moving from the tactical model to strategic mode is the key to enterprise success and necessary when implementing BPM.